* Copy the following files from their source directory to their destination

* Copy the following files from their source directory to their destination

Revision as of 00:38, 23 November 2013

Warning: A bug has been noticed where booting EFISTUB can fail depending on kernel version and motherboard model. See [1] and [2] for more information.

The Linux Kernel (linux>=3.3) supports EFISTUB (EFI BOOT STUB) booting. It is enabled by default on Arch Linux kernels or can be activated by setting CONFIG_EFI_STUB=y in the Kernel configuration (see The EFI Boot Stub for more information).

A single EFISTUB kernel is not capable of launching other kernels, hence each EFISTUB Kernel + Initramfs pair requires a separate boot menu entry. Because of this, when working with multiple kernels, it is recommended to use a UEFI Boot Manager.

Setting up EFISTUB

Mount the EFI System Partition either at /boot (recommended if you are planning to use Gummiboot or no boot manager) or some other location of your choice (most other distro's and tools use /boot/efi). The mountpoint will be mentioned as $esp hereafter.

Copying Kernel and Initramfs to ESP

Warning: The below steps are required only if you DID NOT use /boot as the EFISYS mountpoint. If you did choose /boot as mountpoint, you can continue to #Booting EFISTUB.

Create $esp/EFI/arch/

Copy the following files from source to destination

Boot File Source

UEFI Destination

/boot/vmlinuz-linux

$esp/EFI/arch/vmlinuz-arch.efi

/boot/initramfs-linux.img

$esp/EFI/arch/initramfs-arch.img

/boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img

$esp/EFI/arch/initramfs-arch-fallback.img

Warning: The EFISTUB Kernel must be updated each time the kernel is updated (follow step 4 in #Setting up EFISTUB. Failure to do so will result in failure to boot. Alternatively one can automatically update the EFISTUB kernel using one of the following methods:

Using systemd

Systemd features event triggered tasks. In this particular case, the ability to detect a change in path is used to sync the EFISTUB kernel and initramfs files when they are updated in boot.

Warning: Since mkinitcpio takes time to build the kernel stub and the initramfs. It is possible for the following systemd services to copy older kernel stubs and initramfs instead of the new ones. To reduce the chance of this error, it is better to bind the efistub copying service to check if the initramfs-linux-fallback.img was changed (since it is the last thing built by mkinitcpio).

Tip: Save the following script as /etc/systemd/system/efistub-update.path

Note: The first parameter /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img is the file to watch. The second parameter IN_CLOSE_WRITE is the action to watch for. The third parameter /usr/local/bin/efistub-update.sh is the script to execute.

Tip: In order to use this method, incron must be activated, if it is not run

# systemctl enable incrond.service

Mkinitcpio hook

Mkinitcpio can generate a hook that does not need a system level daemon to function. It spawns a background process which waits for the generation of vm-linuz, initramfs-linux.img, and initramfs-linux-fallback.img; then follows step 4 in Setting up EFISTUB

Tip: Save the following script as /usr/lib/initcpio/install/efistub-update

/etc/fstab bind mount

The following method should work similarly with any distribution that does not symlink in /boot. See Warnings for caveats.

This involves no special scripts, services, or bootloader filesystem drivers.

This centralizes and organizes kernels and initrds across installations on one partition.

This avoids possible limitations imposed by firmware and/or the bootloader on boot device configuration as can often occur with RAID and/or LVM (excepting the standard FAT32 EFI system partition, of course).

Beyond initial configuration this should persist without special consideration or maintenance.

This should be transparent to any action normally affecting /boot and the files therein.

Warning:

This requires both a kernel and a bootloader compatible with the FAT32 filesystem.

Because the FAT32 filesystem cannot handle symlinks, this will not behave as intended with an installation that requires them in /boot.

Initial configuration requires root level access.

This may require a large EFI system partition in order to accomodate multiple installations.

All kernels will require at least a root=system root parameter passed at boot.

per rEFInd's author: OpenSUSE definitely uses symbolic links in /boot... Fedora, Ubuntu, and ... OpenSUSE all refuse a FAT partition as /boot in ... setup [which] can be worked around [in] /etc/fstab. Forum post [here].

Method

Whereas the general convention is to mount the EFI system partition to a /boot/efi subfolder, the following will achieve the opposite.

Create a ef00 type EFI system partition of FAT32 format as described elsewhere.

Tip:

It may be beneficial to make it several gigabytes in size to accomodate multiple installations.

Use the GPT partition name feature for added convenience. For example name the partition esp.

Create a mount-point and mount the EFI system partition somewhere on the filesystem. For example:

$ mkdir /esp$ mount -L esp /esp

Create a folder in /EFI/boot on the EFI system partition to contain your system's /boot files. For example:

$ mkdir /esp/EFI/boot/arch64-laptop

Tip:

The refind bootloader automatically detects and adds EFI loadable kernel files installed to the EFI system partition in /EFI/boot/*/ by default.

Note: As of refind-efi 0.2.7, refind automatically detects kernels in /boot. They do not have to be renamed to have a .efi extension either. Hence, the following sync scripts aren't needed if using refind. You do need to isntall an EFI driver to read the Linux filesystem on which the kernel is stored, though.

Booting EFISTUB

Warning: Linux Kernel EFISTUB initramfs path should be relative to the EFI System Partition's root. For example, if the initramfs is located in $esp/EFI/arch/initramfs-linux.img, the corresponding UEFI formatted line should be initrd=/EFI/arch/initramfs-linux.img or initrd=\EFI\arch\initramfs-linux.img.

EFISTUB kernel can be booted using one of the following ways :

Using gummiboot

Gummiboot is a UEFI Boot Manager which provides a nice menu for EFISTUB Kernels. It is available in [core] as gummiboot and is the recommended boot manager for EFISTUB booting. See gummiboot for more info.

Using rEFInd

rEFInd is a fork of rEFIt Boot Manager (used in Intel Macs) by Rod Smith (author of gdisk). rEFInd fixes many issues in rEFIt with respect to non-Mac UEFI booting and also has support for booting EFISTUB kernels and contains some features specific to them.

Tip: Each line of refind_linux.conf is displayed as a submenu by rEFInd. Access the submenu with "+" or "insert" keys.

Note: Replace the string after PARTUUID with your root's PARTUUID. Please note in the example above that PARTUUID/PARTLABEL identifies a GPT partition, and differs from UUID/LABEL, which identifies a filesystem. Using the PARTUUID/PARTLABEL is advantageous because it is invariant if you reformat the partition with another filesystem. It's also useful if you don't have a filesystem on the partition (or use LUKS, which doesn't support LABELs).

Note: As of refind-efi 0.2.7, refind can auto-detect kernels in /boot, if there are UEFI drivers for the filesystem used by /boot partition (or / partition if no separate /boot is used) in the ESP, and are loaded by rEFInd. This is enabled in the default configuration in refind.conf (you may need to include the PATH to the drivers folders in the ESP). See [3] for more info.

Systemd Automation

Tip: To automate the process of copying refind files and updating the nvram (if needed) use the following script

Note: Save this script as /usr/lib/systemd/scripts/refind_name_patchv2

Tip: If you want to change the directory that refind is installed in the UEFISYS partition, just change the value of $refind_dir in the script

Note: As of refind-efi 0.2.7, refind automatically detects kernels in /boot. They do not have to be renamed to have a .efi extension either. Hence, the following sync scripts aren't needed if using refind. You do need to isntall an EFI driver to read the Linux filesystem on which the kernel is stored, though.

Note: Save the following service file as /usr/lib/systemd/system/refind_update.path

Apple Macs

In case of Apple Macs, try mactel-bootAUR for an experimental "bless" utility for Linux. If that does not work, use "bless" from within OSX to set rEFInd as default bootloader. Assuming UEFISYS partition is mounted at /mnt/efi within OSX, do

This way you can specify UUID's without needing to remember the name or type out 20-30 characters.

Directly, using efibootmgr entry

Warning: Some kernel and efibootmgr combinations might not work without manual intervention [4]. You will be able to delete but not create boot entries.

Note: Some UEFI firmwares may not support embedding command line parameters to uefi applications in the boot entries.

It is possible to directly embed the kernel parameters within the boot entry created by efibootmgr. This means that you can use your UEFI boot order/GUI to directly boot Arch Linux without a separate bootloader like GRUB (below, the EFI System Partition is on /dev/sdX, partition Y).

to verify that the resulting entry is correct. You should also consider reordering the boot options (efibootmgr -o) to place the Arch entry last, which could make the system easier to recover if it fails.

Tip: Save the command for creating your boot entry in a shell script somewhere, which makes it easier to modify (when changing kernel parameters, for example).